


Right and Complete

by afterandalasia



Category: Monsters Inc (2001)
Genre: Angst and Romance, Canon Universe, Community: disney_kink, Cross-Generation Relationship, Cuddling & Snuggling, Developing Relationship, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Interspecies Relationship(s), Mental Health Issues, Other, Post-Canon, Protectiveness, Romantic Friendship, Underage Substance Use, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-04
Updated: 2013-08-04
Packaged: 2017-12-22 10:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/912345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn't running away, because surely running away wouldn't involve going <i>to</i> the monsters in the closet. It's just finding where she feels like she fits.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>References to underage are not Boo/Sulley.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Right and Complete

**Author's Note:**

> For the wonderful anon at the Disney Kink meme who created [this prompt](http://disney-kink.livejournal.com/361.html?replyto=536425) over three years ago now.
> 
> ~
> 
> Boo is eighteen for the majority of this fic, and references to underage are Boo/human OCs (consensual, both parties presumably underage). The fic is hopefully not as dark as the tags would suggest.
> 
> Boo&/Sulley can be interpreted however the reader wishes.

Having invisible friends was a normal part of childhood. Mary knew that. It didn't start to get weird until she realised that most peoples' invisible friends weren't monsters, and that other children got frightened when she talked about them.

As she got older, she just started to understand more. Somehow that made things harder.

 

 

The first time she opened the door herself, it was when she was fourteen and had given up on her parents understanding anything. She gave a scream of frustration, fists clenched, then noticed the light under her door flickering. That usually meant that Sulley was coming to visit her. Before it faded, she strode over to the door and flung it open, hard enough to bang against the wall and reverberate back again.

It was dark on the other side, but she could feel that it was the right room. The old janitor's closet right next to Sulley's office where he had the door installed; she knew her way around it as well as her own bedroom, after all these years. Stepping carefully, she turned on the light and looked around the little rectangle of space. There were still some of her drawings on the walls, the paper going crinkly with age, and a few odd toys that Sulley had bought when she was younger. He hadn't visited so much in recent years, probably thinking that she didn't want or need to see him so much.

God, she needed to see him sometimes so that she knew it was real and that she wasn't going mad.

"Sulley, have you been hanging around in that closet again? Surprised you can fit in the damn thing..."

Mike Wazowski. Mary grinned at the sound of his voice, remembering how just about every character she'd ever made up for a story had been named after Mike. Though he tried to deny caring, he was there with Sulley far more than chance.

Then she heard Sulley's voice, and her smile softened. "Not lately, no... the light must have come on by itself..."

Suppressing a giggle, she stood just back from the door, folded her hands behind her back, and gave her most innocent smile for when the door opened. "Hey, Kitty."

Sulley's hair was more neatly trimmed than the last time she had seen him, his horns a little longer, and the blue of his fur was softening a little, but she would know him anywhere. "Boo!" He stepped to envelop her in a huge, soft hug, and she finally felt better after the argument with her Mom.

"I gotta get going," said Mike from in the office, waving in Mary's general direction. "Gotta get back to Celia. I'll see ya tomorrow, Big Blue."

"See you, Mike," replied Sulley, slightly muffled, and finally released Mary from his grip. She laughed as he put her down again. "Boo, what are you doing here? Is something wrong?"

"I just..." she waved a hand vaguely, trying to find words. "I just needed some time to be Boo," she settled for.

She wasn't quite sure that Sulley understood what she meant by that, but he didn't ask too many questions. And that was just fine by her.

 

 

Sulley got her a Monstropolis-time clock so that she could drop in on his lunchbreaks or meet him after work, and said that he checked the room every day to see whether she had dropped through unexpectedly or not. It was a lot easier to have somewhere to go when... well, when she needed it. When she had a fight with her parents or, as became more and more common, when her parents had fights with each other. On the day that her parents finally decided to get a divorce, she went through the door, broke into Sulley's office and called him at his home to come.

He turned up at nearly midnight, and sat with her on the floor of his office while she cried for about three hours in a way that really wasn't dignified for a fifteen-year-old. When she mumbled something about being sorry for getting him all snotty, he just laughed it off and said that his fur had to be useful for something.

She must have fallen asleep on him, because the next thing that she remembered was waking up in bed, her shoes carefully removed, makeup all over her pillow. It wasn't her alarm that woke her up, though, but Sulley trying to sneak in and retrieve his tie which, he admitted sheepishly, he had left there. Mary had to bite her pillow to keep from laughing, then whispered thanks to him as he crept back through her door again.

 

 

"Boo?" After all of the years, he still called her that. She heard the door creak open a little, then swing the rest of the way, followed by Sulley's heavy shuffle. "What's up, kiddo? You're late."

"Shit." She reached up to rub her eyes with the back of her hand, but didn't turn around. She had been sitting in front of her window, chair turned around so that she could lean on the back, when the door opened. "Yeah, I was supposed to come round today."

A great warm paw came to rest on her back, and however weird it should have been, Mary felt nothing but relaxed at the touch. Sulley's paw still almost spanned her shoulders, warmer than she was even though it was getting on for spring. "Is there something wrong?"

Giving her cheeks another wipe, she disentangled herself from the chair and turned round to face Sulley properly. "Mom's been on at me about college again, that's all."

Sulley shifted round so that he could sit on the floor, pretty much eye-to-eye with her, and put his paw on her knee instead. "Well, we talked about that, you know? You know how to trigger a door from your side, so you can come through, and we'll figure out which door it is. Just, I don't know, leave a note on it or something."

As if it was going to be that easy. Mary put both of her hands over Sulley's, tangling her fingers in his fur, feeling how soft it was between her fingers. "What if it doesn't work, Sulley?" Most of the time, she still used the name Kitty for him, even now, just as he used the name Boo for her. It was easier to pretend that things didn't change so fast when they did. "What if they've already destroyed that door, or haven't made it yet? What if it's deep in the stacks, and you don't find it?"

"Then the first time you come back here, you give a good holler and tell me about it that way."

He gave her a big grin, which showed off a lot of teeth but did make her giggle still. Reaching up, Mary touched his cheek, stroking the shorter hairs just beside his nose. "I just... I don't wanna risk it, Sulley. I can't lose you."

Those were the sort of words that she had very carefully never said, whenever she was worried that something might go wrong and she might get separated from the monster world. As she said them, though, Mary saw Sulley's face crumple, his shoulders slump. She shifted onto the edge of her seat and leant forward so that she could bury her face in the crook of Sulley's neck, his fur enveloping her.

"You smell like wet dog," she mumbled.

"Mike went mad with the odourant," Sulley replied, his voice slightly muffled as well and with a catch in it. He reached up to wrap his arms around her, pulling her off the chair and into his lap. "I did tell him to cool it a bit."

"At least you're not damp."

"That's true." Sulley shifted her around slightly on his lap, presumably to somewhere more comfortable. "We've figured it out this far, Boo. We're not going to lose each other over this."

"Sometimes," she said quietly. "I wish I was a monster. That I could live in Monstropolis with you, and not here."

"This is your home," Sulley said. He tried to pull her away, but she clung tightly to his fur, feeling tears in her eyes again. She could hear the shock in his voice. "You're human, Boo, you belong-"

The only reason that she pulled her face from his shoulder was to look at him accusingly. "Belong? Sulley, the moment that I found out about the monster world it meant that I couldn't be part of the human one. Not properly. Because as far as the human world is concerned, you guys don't exist. Which makes me a nutcase still convinced there are monsters in my closet at the age of eighteen."

A burst of anger ran through her, and she struggled out of Sulley's grip, stumbling to her feet and almost tripping over his leg in the process. She might have kicked him in the gut on the way, to judge by the 'oof' sound that he made, but she wasn't really paying attention as she rounded on him.

"I get it, you didn't do this. But damn it, Sulley," Mary gestured furiously, "you're the only one who has a chance of fixing this mess of my life. At least monsters know that humans exist!"

"Boo..." Sulley started to get to his feet, then they both froze at the sound of a closing door.

"Mary?" Her mother's voice carried through the house. "Mary, what the hell is going on?"

It was like a pain. "Go," she breathed, at the same time as Sulley mouthed 'I gotta go' and scrambled back to the door. It closed behind him and she watched the light flicker out, then buried her face in her hands. Her Mom had probably heard her shouting at her imaginary friends again. Great. She hoped that it wasn't going to mean another attempt to get her to talk to a shrink.

 

 

It did mean another attempt. And then another fight. And then another night curled up against the door, crying, not able to scream because it would be heard but wishing that she could, just to set off the door again.

"Please, Sulley," she whispered. "I'd rather be a freak among monsters than a freak among people."

But there was, of course, no response. Even monsters couldn't read minds.

 

 

Mary couldn't blame Sulley for looking surprised when he found her sitting cross-legged on his desk and reading his morning paper. For a moment he just looked at her dumb-foundedly, and she gestured with the paper as a hello. "It came in threw the window. Don't know if that's normal here or not."

"That'd be the paperboy. Maulsalot. Got a good arm on him. Wh... what are you doing here?"

He might have been speaking to her, but his eyes were on the bag on the floor. That probably made her intentions a bit too obvious.

"Boo, you can't just move into the factory or something..."

"It's just, I don't know, for a few days," she replied, hands clenching into fists. "I had a really bad argument with my Mom this time. Turns out that it's hard to come up for some kind of explanation for why you talk to cupboard doors and occasionally let slip that you wish you could go to the other world. Though I think she gets more pissed-off about how 'antisocial'," she dropped air-quotes around the word, "I am. She actually went and called me psychotic this time."

That had hurt. More than anything because Mary knew what that damn term meant, had looked at it on the computer screen and wondered, in her darker moments, whether even she could actually believe in the monsters on the far side of the closet door. Those nights when she rattled the handle and no-one answered.

Sulley walked over to his desk, putting his suitcase down, and looked at her levelly. It made her feel like her heart was going to jump out of her chest, but she kept her chin up and looked at him defiantly. "Running away isn't going to help, Boo. It'll just-"

"I'm not running away," she said flatly. "Running away would have been pretending that monsters didn't actually exist. I'm trying to actually deal with my past."

"It's late." Sulley rubbed his forehead with the back of one hand, shaking his head wearily. "I have had a really long day dealing with people, and dash it all, Boo, I do not want to let you make things worse for yourself like this."

"What, you never needed to get away from your family for a bit? Eighteen was never bad for you? Oh, wait, you weren't pretending to not know about the existence of another world."

"When I was eighteen..." For a moment he trailed off, with a chuckle that sounded to her like there was a bit of regret in it, then groaned and leant against the desk. It shifted, and Mary fought to keep both her balance and a straight face. "The world was a different place when I was eighteen, Boo. But that doesn't mean it was easier."

"Sounds like a story you need to tell me." She let her voice soften, and uncrossed her legs to dangle them off the edge, closer to him. "Look, I'll go back tomorrow morning. I just need a night away, where I don't feel like I'm about to be committed."

Sulley shook his head, but there was a hint of a smile on his lips and in his eyes. "You owe me for takeout," he said finally. "And this time, I'm not sleeping in my chair."

 

 

"I thought it was called takeout, not getout!" Mary was still clinging to the wriggling carton as Sulley put aside her bag and got his keys out of his suitcase. "You did this deliberately!"

"You told me to get my favourites..."

"There is no way that you eat this." She clutched the food to her chest, wondering about whether this was a monster thing, or just Sulley winding her up. Late at night, with her hood up and her hands in her pockets, she'd drawn a few strange looks on the street, but Sulley had said that it was more for the clothes than anything else. Nobody would assume that she was a human underneath it. At the takeout, Sulley had referred to her as a 'distant cousin, here to look at the job', and she had smiled to herself that his lying had at least improved over time.

(Mike had never let it drop, though in return Sulley had taken to chanting, 'Put that thing back where it came from or so help me' until the two of them dissolved into helpless laughter. Mary would watch them and smile.)

Still chuckling, Sulley pushed open the door, dropped Mary's bag just inside, and took the offending food item off her. "All right, all right. You are supposed to boil it before you eat it. But you're supposed to eat it within seconds for the best taste, so normally you don't get it takeout... Mike?"

Mike Wazowski, on the sofa, with the remote control. That wasn't a game of Clue that Mary remembered playing. All three of them looked at each other in bewilderment, then Mike and Sulley started speaking at the same time and over each other.

"I'm just visiting," she said over Mike, finally. "But I didn't think you lived here anymore."

"Celia and I had an argument..." Mike slumped down in Sulley's chair, almost sliding out of it. It just made him look even smaller than he actually was -- it had been strange to see Mike from an adult point of view, above his head-height rather than below it. "It was about the girls..."

"I'll get three sets of cutlery," said Sulley. "Good thing I bought plenty of takeout..."

 

 

Mary didn't pretend to understand most of what Mike was talking about when it came to his argument with Celia about how they should raise their twin daughters. Something about schooling and education and... she lost track of it somewhere along the way, probably around the time that she finished the second plate of takeout and started to get that warm, full, sleepy feeling. Sulley had sat on the floor in lieu of getting Mike off the couch, and Mary had settled next to him, curled up against his side. She could feel herself nodding off, chopsticks and fork still in her hands.

Mike was saying something about elementary school. He'd gotten better with kids over the years, which was probably a good thing.

She was dopily aware of Sulley putting her on the couch, covering her with a blanket, and taking her shoes off. It managed to feel more comfortable than her own bed had done for the past... months, really.

 

 

She wasn't sure what woke her up. It could have been a nightmare, a shift in the temperature... or perhaps Mike snoring in the chair opposite. Mary blinked at him vaguely, groaned, and tried to pull the blanket over her head. It didn't help. Giving up, she sat up, blinking, and looked around the room. There was enough light coming in for her to make out the shapes of the room: couch, chairs, table, television, floor lamps. The kitchen at the other end of the open-plan room, the door to the bathroom, the front door, all visible from where she sat. She hadn't appreciated before how well-off Sulley must be in the monster world to have a flat like this, all windows and open plan and penthouse views.

The door to Sulley's bedroom was ajar. Mary left the blanket on the couch and padded over, pushing the door further open. Huh, even Sulley had a closet. Everything in the room was larger than back in the human world -- taller, broader, meant to fit someone of Sulley's height instead. It made her feel weirdly childlike again.

It had been easier then. People didn't worry when children had imaginary friends, just when adults did.

Sulley was faintly visible in bed, a huge soft shape in the darkness. Still heavy-eyed, Mary crossed the room and climbed up onto the bed, the mattress giving beneath her knees. She should have figured Sulley for soft things. Smiling, she slid over the soft blankets until she was lying back-to-back with Sulley, his tail making her lie at a slight angle.

He snuffled in his sleep. It made her smile, sleepily, as she drifted back into sleep again.

 

 

The second time she woke up, she was not on the couch. For one moment, Mary thought she might have been swallowed by a pile of cuddly toys, but then she realised that cuddly toys didn't actively snuggle up to you, and didn't have a huge heavy heartbeat that you could hear thumping.

Ah, that was it. She had climbed into Sulley's bed, and now that was Sulley's arm around her and Sulley curled up behind her back cradling her. She spat out a few hairs, and decided that staying here sounded like a good idea.

"Hurngh," mumbled Sulley, and she looked round in time to see him open one eye, squint, then pull back with a look of astonishment. "Boo?!"

"I hope so," she muttered. It was cold when he moved away, and she tried to roll back towards him, but he put an arm in the way.

"What are you doing here?"

"Mike snores," she replied.

He didn't look surprised by that. "You're in my _bed_."

"On, more than in." She shrugged, then reached out to stroke his arm. His hair was all ruffled and morning-y, and he sighed heavily as he allowed her to shift close again.

"You're supposed to be going home this morning, Boo," he said. She wriggled under his arm, and he twisted round so that he was on his side, pulling away. "Back to your world."

"The human world," she muttered, correcting him as she always did. It was difficult to think of either world as being quite hers most of the time; more and more so in recent months. "And yeah, whatever."

Finally, Mary sat up and looked away, running a hand through her mussed hair. She'd grown it out for several years when she was younger, but nowadays it was back to being bobbed, just about long enough to tie up but not long enough to reach her shoulders. Her fingers caught in a knot and she grimaced.

Behind her, there was a solid sort of silence, one that grated on her nerves as she tried to unpick her tangled hair. "What is it, Boo?" said Sulley quietly, after what seemed like an eternity.

"I don't want to go back, Sulley." The words slipped so easily from her lips, after she had been struggling so hard against admitting them. The human world had felt wrong for such a long time now. "I feel better here."

The bed shifted, tilting her into Sulley again as he sat up and turned her to face him. It had always been easier to move her than for him to move, and she had willingly let him do it. Had always trusted him to do it. "You don't know about the monster world, Boo. Just because things are rough doesn't mean that..." He sighed. "I know what it feels like to want to run away, Mary. But that doesn't mean that you should do it."

"Run away-!" She punched him on the arm. "You do not understand-"

_So much_ , she intended to say: what it was like to have to keep a whole other world a secret, what it was like to have your best friend be in that world, how much of her life felt stilted and shrouded in... well, in madness, or something close to it. Over sixteen years had passed since she had first wandered into the monster world, and she had never really left it; the longer it went on, the closer to mad she felt.

But she didn't get to tell him. About par for the course for her life. The door to Sulley's room swung open and, with a cavernous yawn, Mike stepped in. "Hey, Sulley, we gotta..."

This silence was a little more pointed, as Mike looked from one of them to the other.

"Sulley, can I have a word with you?"

Mary tucked her knees up to her chest as Sulley climbed out of bed and left the room. He paused for a moment to pick up her bag from outside and pass it in, then closed the door behind him.

 

 

Apparently, he thought that she was above eavesdropping. Like hell. Mary pulled her hairbrush out of her bag and sat down right next to the door to catch what she could of what Mike was saying. If it was going to be about her, which she had no doubt it was, she didn't see why it should go on behind her back.

"-what the hell is going on here, or so help me-"

"Or what, Mike? You'll shout at me some more? Shout at Mary?"

"Oh, _Mary_ now, is it? What happened to Boo?"

"Well, she got old enough to tell me her name, for a sta-"

"You still called her Boo!" Mike's voice rose almost painfully, and Mary winced. "And now suddenly she's at your house, she's in your bed -- how long has this even been going on?"

"This... going on? This is a one-time thing, Mike! She had an argument with her folks, she wanted to stay with a friend. Are you really telling me that's so damn weird?"

"Oh yeah, a friend. In the monster world. In your bed!"

Sulley gave a rumbling growl of frustration. On the far side of the door, Mary slumped down slightly, feeling like the pressure in her chest was building again. It hadn't been so bad last night or this morning, but she could feel it again now, not quite a weight but close to it. "You still have this, don't you? You still think it's weird that I'm capable of being friends with a human, or that a human's capable of being friends with me. What, you want to start saying 'it' instead of 'her' again?"

"That's low, Sulley."

"Well, you're being an idiot about this. You were snoring, the bed's more comfortable than the couch, I really don't see what your problem is."

"Oh, don't you?"

When Sulley's response didn't come immediately, Mary found herself holding her breath. He said something that was too quiet for her to hear, and she pressed her ear closer to the door.

"I get it, Sulley. I know what it's like to work so hard you don't have time for anything else. But..." his voice faded out again, and she scrambled round to peer through the keyhole. Sulley was sitting in his chair, head bowed, as Mike addressed him. "I know you're close to her, Sulley. Maybe closer than to me. But you gotta think about what you're doing."

Anger flashed through her, and she got to her feet, hauling open her bag to get changed. Sure, Mike had gotten better about her, better about children in general. But even if she didn't remember much of her first time in Monstropolis, she rememebered enough of those early visits to know that Mike had been both slightly afraid of her and more-than-slightly resentful of her friendship with Sulley. The fear might have gone, but the resentment hadn't.

She opened the door defiantly, and saw Mike step back and Sulley jump to his feet. "You've got work, right? Or do you guys have breakfast first?"

It saddened her to see that Sulley was the one who looked ashamed of himself. "Yeah," he said, voice gone flat, "breakfast. I should get on that."

 

 

She didn't speak to Mike during breakfast, or while Mike and Sulley squabbled over the bathroom, or even when Mike offered the two of them a ride to work. Despite every nerve screaming that she did not want to go back to the factor, Mary made sure her bag was packed up again, and sat in the back of the car -- behind Mike, as Sulley's seat was pushed so far back she wouldn't have been able to fit in. She left her hood down, and when a few passers-by caught sight of her she smiled at them and tried not to laugh at their surprise. At least there wasn't any running and screaming.

"Hey, Sulley," she said as they got out of the car. He turned with a faint grunt of curiosity, and she stood up on tiptoes to straighten his tie and collar. "Your tie's wonky."

He smiled for her again, softly, then picked up her bag and reached out his hand. The carpark was pretty much empty, the factory not officially open in this time in the morning. Sulley had told her before that he worked long hours there.

"Thanks, Boo. Come on, let's get you home."

She held her tongue on what she wanted to reply.

 

 

Mike left them to wander in the direction of the coffee machine, and Sulley continued on towards his office. The lights flickered on as he entered, probably motion-activated, and at first he didn't seem to notice that Mary's pace slowed until she was not alongside but behind him. A couple of paces behind, by the time that they reached his office and the closet that contained her door.

There was sadness in his eyes as he turned to face her. "Boo..." he began, but didn't seem to know how to continue.

"I don't want to go back, Sulley," she said for him. "And you know it."

"You can't stay here. This isn't your home."

"My home is with you, Sulley." She was almost surprised to realise that she was crying, tears running down her cheeks. "It always has been. I don't want to go to the human world because you're not there, because-"

His arms wrapped around her, and she broke off into tears, clutching him so tightly that her fingers hurt. Sulley made hushing noises as she cried, down on one knee so that he could hold her to his chest. He smelt like _Sulley_ this time, warm and soft and enveloping, and it didn't take long for the tears to stop. Not compared to how bad it could get back in the human world.

"I love you, Sulley," she said, drawing back far enough that she could look him in the eye. The words almost cracked. She wiped her cheeks with her sleeve, and reached with her other hand to touch his jaw. "I lo-"

"Please don't, Mary." His words were so soft that it seemed she barely heard them. "Don't do this."

"Don't tell the truth?" She rested both hands on his cheeks and looked deeply into his eyes. Even as he shook his head slightly, he didn't look away either. "You're my home, Sulley. My rock. I'm weird and human and broken and maybe I'm mad, but you make me feel right again, don't you see..."

She trailed off. All of the words that she had thought up over the years seemed to flit away from her, or be entirely not-enough for what she wanted to say. Her fingers traced through his hair, softer as it was on his cheek.

"I love you," she finished, because that was all there was to it, all that there had ever been. "And I don't want to go back through that door because the time I spend there is time away from you. And this is your world and you fit here, and I just... I thought that maybe I could fit here too. If you just give me a chance."

"What do you want me to say?" Sulley's voice was thick, and it took her a moment to realise that there were tears in his eyes as well. "You can't dress up in a monster costume and live here forever, you know."

"Why not?" When he looked at her in bewilderment, she couldn't help laughing. "Not the costume bit. But living in Monstropolis. Why not? Surely it's safer then sending me back and forth knowing about this place? And it's been years since you thought that children were toxic."

For a moment, she felt hope, but then she saw the pain in Sulley's expression and her smile faded. "I shouldn't have gone back," he said. "I shouldn't have gotten you into this."

"Hey!" She punched him on the arm again. "Don't say that! If you hadn't come back, I wouldn't..." words almost failed her. "I wouldn't have you."

This time he didn't say anything.

"Tell me that you don't feel better when we're together," she added. "Tell me that it doesn't make you happier to think that we'll be talking again, or that you don't look forward to the days that we agree to meet. Tell me that I don't make you happy, Sulley."

"Mary..." he sighed.

Before he could turn his head away, she ducked into his line of sight again, taking hold of his face. His arms were still loosely around her, hands on her back. "Tell me that you don't love me," she said quietly.

There was a long, painful pause, then Sulley unwrapped his arms from her and sat back. "That's not fair, Mary," he said finally. The words made her feel very small, and tightened the knot in her chest again. "You're a kid, and I know it must be hard being, well, the only one like you, but that's no reason for you to need to latch onto me like this."

"Are you seriously suggesting that I haven't thought about this? That this is just some knee-jerk reaction?"

Even she could hear that her voice sounded older than eighteen when she said things like that. Hell, she sounded like her mother. Mary ran a hand through her hair and felt suddenly tired as she looked at Sulley, tears pretty much dry on her cheeks now, and tried not to be hurt by that uncertain expression on his face.

"I've tried a normal human life, Sulley, because believe it or not I haven't just been sitting around in those in-between months. I scraped through High School and applied to a college. I've tried being a party kid, and getting high, and sleeping with guys. And then sleeping with girls, because I figured maybe that was why the guys weren't working out." It was like washing the poison from a wound, everything that she had tried in the hope that it would feel _real_. It was enough of a relief that she could ignore the uncomfortable expression on Sulley's face. "I've done the whole acting-out and finding-yourself thing, Sulley, and you know what? I was right the first time around. What was missing wasn't studying or parties or sex or college. What was missing was you. And please, don't go patronising me by acting as if this is some spur-of-the-moment thing."

Sulley seemed to consider his reply for a long moment. "I'm sorry," he said finally. "This may not be sudden for you, but it is for me."

She crossed her arms over her chest, and thought of all the time that they had spent together. All the hours and evenings and nights of talking and honesty. "Is it really?"

 

 

She spent the day in Sulley's office, while he did... whatever it was that CEOs did. There were a couple of books in there, tatty and with turned-down corners, one of which turned out to be a very interesting collection of short stories starting with how a human girl in a red hood almost killed a monster with an axe.

Sulley came in at lunchtime with lunch, and almost went to go again before Mary jumped out of his huge chair and ran to grab him by the hand. "Stay, please," she said. "Have lunch with me."

"I'm pretty busy today, Boo..."

It was probably a good thing that he was using that name for her again. Mary smiled. "Just quickly, then."

Sulley paused, then smiled just slightly in return. "All right then. Just quickly."

 

 

It was only awkward until Sulley realised that he hadn't bought two sets of cutlery, and tried unsuccessfully to use the chopsticks until Mary, laughing, swapped them for the fork she had been using. Then Sulley gave a sheepish grin, and things started to be right again. The lunch turned out to be not-so-quick, and then Sulley had to hurry off again.

She wasted a lot of the afternoon staring out of the window and watching people go past. Counting legs or wings or... tentacles? Okay, tentacles. She wished that she'd bought some paper with her to draw some of them, interesting as they were. At least her drawing had improved over the years. The milling back and forth turned into a general flow out of the factory, and the door behind her opened once again.

"You haven't asked me to go yet," she said, trying to sound amused but feeling almost desperate.

"Well, no," drawled a deadpan voice. Mary whirled to see a large slug-like figure in the doorway, wearing glasses, a cardigan, and a distinctly unimpressed expression. "That would be Mr. Sullivan's job."

"Roz!" Sulley came running down the corridor, almost overshooting the door as Roz slithered into the room and ignored him. "Roz, I can explain-"

Roz waved a hand. "No need for explanations, Mr. Sullivan. You and I both know that humans aren't what we once thought they were."

"I remember you." Mary squinted, trying to conjure up another image of the... woman. "You were there the first time."

"So glad you remember me," said Roz dryly. "I had a report come in that you were back in Monstropolis, and I thought it best to talk to Mr. Sullivan about the matter."

"You sent me back through the door."

Sulley was making 'stop it' gestures behind Roz, and Mary winced slightly as she realised that they weren't playful ones. It wasn't clear whether Roz was aware, but she didn't respond as she moved further into the room still and Sulley sloped in behind him. "You were an infant at the time. It is hardly as if we could explain the situation to you."

Mary's surprise was nothing compared to Sulley's, to judge by his double-take.

"Of course, we've been aware that you've been entering the monster world from time to time, but it's been of low concern because you never left the factory. This time, it has been more serious."

"So... are you going to burn my door this time?" Mary spoke, then gave a short, hysterical burst of laughter and tried not to let the panic which she was feeling show on her face. Mike and Sulley had told her about the shredder, about how doors were more rarely destroyed now but would still occasionally get put through if what was on the other side proved dangerous to the monsters.

Roz shrugged. "It was considered. But the CDA considered things for a while, and we realised that we don't have any policies for human entrance to the monster world in the post-Scream economy."

There was no way that she had just said that.

But then Roz's lip curled up slightly at the corner, in something that might _just_ have been a smile. "And it occured to us that perhaps we should."

 

 

Mike didn't actually look surprised to see them leaving the building together again, or at least Mary was fairly sure that he didn't. It was a little difficult to tell behind the enormous bunch of flowers that he was holding. One of them was trying to lick him.

"You know, you really should put your hood up," he said. "And I wasn't going to say that I told you that you'd get in trouble, but I told you. Roz, my pustulent temptress, I can explain everything--"

"You're married, Wazowski," said Roz. "In any case, the CDA probably knows more than any of you do about the situation. I'll send the paperwork to your address, Mr. Sullivan."

"Paperwork?" Mike looked between the three of them. "Roz doesn't even work here, and you've managed to get yourselves _paperwork_?" He shook his head. "Well, I'm not doing it."

 

 

"Are you sure that you want to stay in this world? It's going to be all sorts of difficult."

At least Sulley had waited until they were out of the car, Mary thought, rather than starting the argument again in front of Mike. Mary groaned, turning and leaning her forehead against the wall, and heard Sulley stop a couple of paces further on.

"Do you know what war is, Sulley? Do monsters have war?"

"Well, not since..."

"Or genocide, how about that? Oh, wait, that's what humans tried to do to you guys."

"Mary..."

"Do you have dictatorships out here?"

"What is a-"

"No, there are like two million monsters, you told me that one time. I'm not sure there have ever been that few human beings. Is there any poverty in Monstropolis? Starvation? Cults? Assassins?"

Sulley was looking at her in astonishment, she realised as she looked round to face him again. "Look, Mary, it's not like monsters are perfect. You know what Waternoose and Randall--"

"Oh, wow, you worked with assholes." She rolled her eyes. "There are always going to be assholes, Sulley. My mother was married to one. Hell, my mother might well be one. It's hard to tell when everyone treats you like you're going to flip out and become the next big serial killer. I'm not saying that monsters have got some sort of utopia, just that..."

"When you've had humans try to wipe out your entire species, it sort of puts things in perspective?"

Wow. She would have been proud of that flat tone herself. Standing up straight, Mary rubbed her eyes and nodded. "Yeah, pretty much. Weird, that we're the bogeymen over here."

"You know Bogey Man?"

She couldn't help it, and burst out laughing. "Oh my god, Sulley. No, I just..." she shook her head. "Though I suppose you guys have _the human child_ , right? And you know her."

Sulley was giving her one of those fond, uncertain smiles again, and he walked back to put his hands on her shoulders. "It's not going to be easy, you know."

"I'm not looking for easy, Sulley." Her cheek rested against his paw. "I'm looking for complete. I'm not complete in the human world, because-"

_Because you're not there_ , she was about to say, but Sulley put one finger to her mouth and promptly obscured half of her face. She gave a muffled giggle instead.

"All right. I get it. I hope you like paperwork," he added, and started back towards the elevator. "Roz likes hers in triplicate."

 

 

"Do you think your University would accept Advanced Placement credits? It's only calculus, but..."

"No. No, now you're pushing your luck."

She speared her dinner with a chopstick before it could get away. "Roz said I was going to need a monster escort anyway, it's not like it'd be harder... maybe they could offer credits to anyone brave enough to room with me... do you guys have potatoes in Monstropolis?"

"Powhat now?"

"Okay, I'm visiting Home Depot one of these days. No way am I going without fries."

 

 

She changed into her pyjamas this time, and stood pointedly in Sulley's doorway as he looked at her, raised his eyebrows, and waited.

"We can argue, I can agree to sleep on the couch, and then I'll climb into bed once you're asleep anyway," she said. "And there's no way you can actually fit on that couch, so don't even suggest it."

"You're really something else," Sulley said. He put his hand on her head to turn her around, and shoved her gently into the room. "Don't steal the blankets."

"You _are_ a blanket."

"Oh, hush."

 

 

Sulley might not snore, but he was a cuddler. It was a good thing that she didn't mind. Mary brushed a light kiss over his fingertip, making his hand twitch, then snuggled closer in to him and closed her eyes.

Right could figure itself out in time. Right now, she'd take complete.


End file.
